Regulating Human Rights: International Organizations, Flexible Standards, and International Refugee Law

Abstract

This article explains how international organizations can improve human rights outcomes under conditions where treaty regimes have failed. By using their authority to create more flexible standards than those contained in international human rights law, facilitating linkage of human rights practices to economic incentives and providing valuable legal cover for state actions, international organizations may succeed in getting even rogue states to improve their human rights practices. I develop this argument in the context of the UN Refugee Agency's management of the post-2003 Iraqi refugee crisis in Jordan and Syria. I also present examples of how international organizations might serve as regulators of human rights in other contexts.